


Swirling Lights Hid the Truth So I Guess This Is a Blackout

by bug_from_space



Category: bare: A Pop Opera - Hartmere/Intrabartolo
Genre: Absent Parents, Character of Faith, Crisis of Faith, Denial, Drug Dealing, Drug Use, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Loss of Faith, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Religious Guilt, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 19:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16582355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bug_from_space/pseuds/bug_from_space
Summary: Two weeks after Romeo and Juliet, Lucas Carter reflects.





	Swirling Lights Hid the Truth So I Guess This Is a Blackout

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Not Wonderland](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10877037) by [bug_from_space](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bug_from_space/pseuds/bug_from_space). 



> So I suppose a sequel of sorts to this: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10877037. But it's not needed to read that part first. This was started ages ago and I only just remembered it was there so here it is: I finished and cleaned it up a little but yeah, enjoy.

Lucas twisted onto his side, the high wearing off, and the grief and guilt that had clung onto the blurry edges of his thoughts solidifying and coming back full force. It had been two weeks- fourteen days, since Jason had died. The first week had been easy enough. There was enough to do; graduating, funeral arrangements, coming back here, that it hadn’t been hard to ignore push it to the back of his thoughts. But it wasn’t like he could do that when he had nothing to do but stare at his walls.

He had managed to spend the last… four days in a perpetual state of high or asleep. It wasn’t like his parents noticed. They were disappointed in him sure, but they didn’t know him. They sent him away to a boarding school for as much of the year as he could, that wasn’t really a sign of happy family relations. (“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” he remembered, it seemed fitting right now.)

He hadn’t been charged with anything, a small mercy compared to the shit going on (why he wasn't sure. Maybe the school didn't want the bad PR, or perhaps his parents had pulled a few strings, though he doubted it was because they actually cared about him, more likely they just didn’t want the shame that came with a drug-dealing son). He and Tanya had broken up, unsurprisingly, he mused. Death put a dampener on any relationship and it wasn’t like they had ever planned to keep going past graduation. 

He had been accepted to university already, so that was something. At least he didn’t have to figure that out. He’d be out of his parents house again soon, besides it wasn’t like it had been home for him in a long time. Eyes observed the room; the one from his childhood, from before they had sent him off to St. Cecelia’s. It was just another reminder of his outlier status; a strange mix of a small kid’s room (action figures, novels he had read when he was a child, a handful of stuffed animals, the crucifix on the wall from when he’d still had faith in God and his kindness) and half packed boxes (clothes, books, drugs). It wasn’t like it would stick around long anyways. He was heading east in a few weeks, leaving this room to gather dust once again.

Jason was supposed to- no. No, that was one train of thought he wasn’t going to think about. He’d spent the past four days in a near constant state of drug use to avoid thinking about Jason (and Peter, and Jason-and-Peter.) He knew Peter was going east as well, away from everything that had happened. He couldn’t blame him. It made sense. 

It wasn’t like they had been close or anything. Friends sure, but it had always been Jason, Peter, Ivy, Matt, and Nadia. He had skipped that, instead choosing Tanya, and Rory and the others. (He didn’t regret it, he didn’t.) But... but they had all been friends, even if not close. They had spent years forced together by virtue of a boarding school, and they had been more than just passing acquaintances. And now Jason was dead, and he and Tanya hadn’t talked since he left the school.

Lucas stood up, pausing for a few seconds as the floor seemed to shift under him, vision blurring on the edges. After a few seconds the vertigo faded, the world settling back into place, and he walked over to the crucifix. It looked like any of the others he had seen over his life, the ones from his childhood church, or the church in the school, even the bloody dorm rooms had had them. When he was younger it had been a sign of his faith and his belief in Jesus and the heavenly Father. Now… now it was a reminder of everything he didn’t want to think about. (Jason, Peter, Ivy, Matt, the baby, St. Cecilia’s, even Romeo and Juliet.) Reaching up he took it off the wall, gripping it hard. (In reassurance or anger, Lucas wasn’t sure). Placing it in the top drawer of his dresser, Lucas shoved it closed. If God wanted to judge he could do so, but he was finally finished with offering his faults up on a platter.

He was exhausted of the guilt, of being told God would forgive him everything (well what about this? Or was it just one step too far?) but simultaneously being told he wasn’t good enough. Well fuck that. It wasn’t like his convictions had ever been the strongest of the lot of them anyways, Ivy and Peter had always been far more devoted.

Collapsing backwards onto his bed, Lucas gazed up at the ceiling. Perhaps he really had gone too far. Maybe his soul was irredeemable, and he was fated to spend his afterlife with the Devil (created in His image- as if). It wasn’t like he could confess to this, no amount of Hail Mary’s could fix this. This was worse than cheating on a test, this was literal life and death, and Lucas, was on the losing side. His parents would be home soon, he thought distantly, home from church, (“Son,” his father’s gruff voice, oh so full of paternal disappointment, “We don’t think you should come today,” and his mother, patronising in her refusal to state the actual reason.) Just another week and he’d be gone, and he wouldn’t have to face it. He’d be gone. Half way across the country and as far away from this as he could be. He could reinvent himself if he wanted, and if nothing else no one would no his name.

There were enough things he didn’t want to think about. (His fading faith, the past two weeks, his parents, his future, the fact that he had supplied the drugs to Jason, everything in between. Some more so than others). Denial had always served him well enough, there was no reason to fix it, there was no reason to stop denying it. It was just one little sin after all, (repeated a thousand times. Or maybe it was just a thousand sins).


End file.
